Bonanza Air Lines Flight 114 was a Fairchild F-27

turboprop A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction gearbox, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling nozzle. Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. ...

airliner An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ai ...

flying out of

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

, to

McCarran International Airport Harry Reid International Airport is an international airport in Paradise, Nevada, and is the main government airport for public use in the Las Vegas Valley, a metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Nevada, about south of Downtown Las Vegas. ...

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vega ...

, on the evening of November 15, 1964.Incident summary at baa-acro.com
At 8:25 p.m., during a landing approach in poor weather conditions, it crashed into the top of a hill in open desert country about SSW of Las Vegas. All 29 aboard -- 26 passengers and a crew of three -- died instantly when the plane exploded on impact, no more than 10 feet (3 m) below a ridge crest. Although this was not the only incident involving a Bonanza Air Lines airplane, it is the only crash with fatalities during the airline's 23-year history.Bonanza Air Lines accidents and incidents
at the

Aviation Safety Network The Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) is an independent, nonprofit, international organization concerning research, education, advocacy, and communications in the field of aviation safety. FSF brings together aviation professionals from all sectors ...

Media reports initially stated that 28 had died, but these were corrected when the body of a very young girl was found amid the debris. The rugged terrain and snowdrifts surrounding the crash site initially prevented ground vehicles from reaching the wreckage, so four helicopters assisted in the recovery efforts. Eventually a narrow, unimproved road one mile long that climbs up a ridge and terminates at the hilltop crash site was built to assist in salvage operations; it can still be seen in current aerial photos. Pilot Henry "Hank" Fitzpatrick, a veteran with over 11,000 hours experience, was initially blamed for flying too low due to misreading the approach chart for McCarran International, but an investigation years later showed that the chart was marked in a non-standard, and possibly confusing, manner. Some heirs of the crash victims sued the publisher of the chart, but before a verdict was reached in the wrongful death lawsuit the chart company,

Jeppesen Jeppesen (also known as Jeppesen Sanderson) is an American company offering navigational information, operations planning tools, flight planning products and software. Jeppesen's aeronautical navigation charts are often called "Jepp charts" or s ...

, agreed to pay the plaintiffs US$490,000.

References

External links

Aircraft Accident Report for Flight 114
via baa-acro.com
Gallery of 26 historic and present-day photos of crash site
from the

Las Vegas Sun The ''Las Vegas Sun'' is one of the Las Vegas Valley's two daily subscription newspapers. It is owned by the Greenspun family and is affiliated with Greenspun Media Group. The paper published afternoons on weekdays from 1990 to 2005 and is no ...

Photograph of wreckage at the crash site
at bonanzaairlines.com

from th
Ed Coates collectionColor pre-crash photograph of the accident aircraft
(with former registration number of N145L)
Names of passengers and crew
Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1964 1964 in Nevada Airliner accidents and incidents in Nevada Airliner accidents and incidents involving controlled flight into terrain Accidents and incidents involving the Fairchild F-27 Bonanza Air Lines accidents and incidents History of Clark County, Nevada November 1964 events in the United States Harry Reid International Airport {{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1964